


Selling Out

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Character Study, Foodies, Gen, History, Monks, Pre-Series, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 05:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2012331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Throughout time, Methos has had a complicated relationship with writing.</p><p>For this prompt at comment-fic on lj: Highlander, Methos, the first record he ever wrote (and why)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Selling Out

At first, he hated writing.

He was, as they would later call it, a bit of a curmudgeon about it.

It just seemed so vulgar, so base, to take the sanctity of the word, the voice ringing true from mouth to ear, and turn it into ugly little scrapings. To take a word, spoken and pure, and thrust it down onto a stone, to make it rigid and unchangeable for eternity -- it went against everything Methos knew of time and change. It was a violation. It was, truth be told, rather disgusting.

He was, he would later admit, somewhat stubborn about it. He refused to write when he was in Babylonia, pretending not to be elite enough to know anything about reading and writing (though of course he could read - he'd be a fool not to learn to read when he got the chance - but there was no advantage in allowing others to know he could).

Greece was harder. Writing was all the rage - letters, memoirs, books full of gossip about famous people (they called it philosophy and history). But Methos managed to get others to write things down for him when he absolutely needed it. He still felt a resentment toward those inane little marks. He didn't want to bring more of them into the world.

It was Rome, of all places, where he finally gave in. Rome, with the silliest, ugliest alphabet he'd ever seen.

But Rome, well, it knew how to feast.

After Methos had gotten his favorite cook drunk enough to reveal his recipes, Methos realized that they were far too detailed and complicated to remember. With a great sigh, he put ink to parchment.

He grumbled after, he would someday recall, something about children and their stupid fashions of the day.

Of course a mere few hundred years later, he was in a monastery copying hundreds of tomes into illuminated books. During those long, tedious days he often noted the irony that he now wrote more than almost anyone.

And he only occasionally mistranslated to insert dirty rhymes into the books. Hardly ever. (It turned out that the written word wasn't so unchangeable after all).


End file.
